According to Osho, when you confess a past offense you honor a present impulse toward truth, and that very acceptance drains the wound of guilt, lightens the burden, and lets the past drop. Suppression breeds fear, anxiety, and secrecy; expression brings healing, innocence, and freedom. In sincere admission, even your mistake becomes a step toward the temple—an obstacle transformed into growth, openness, and inner peace.
Saying honestly what you did wrong lets the hurt come out so you feel clean, calm, and free.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, if up until yesterday I too have, in one way or another, stolen in your ashram, and today a strong urge arises to come before you and confess my offense, while another voice within says, “Forget what is past; take care of what lies ahead,” then what guidance would you give in such a situation? Krishnapriya has asked.
First of all, when a feeling is arising, it is arising now. The feeling that you should go and admit your theft, or your mistake, or your offense—this feeling is arising now. It is not something from the past. The theft may have happened sometime—what use is that now? But this feeling, that I should acknowledge the wrongdoing, is arising right now. This feeling is not past; it is not in the past, it is in the present. The theft was in the past—let the theft go; what is done is done. But this feeling is arising now; do not postpone it. Let this feeling arise; let it be expressed. There is benefit in the emergence of this feeling. If this feeling is expressed fully, if there is complete acceptance of it, only then will it be possible—“Forget what is past.” Because once we have accepted something, its burden becomes…
Osho, you said that the acceptance of sin gives birth to worthiness. But can it not also give birth to self-abasement? Please explain.
If the acceptance of sin truly happens, self-abasement can never be born. Self-abasement arises because you do not want to accept, and yet you are forced to accept. Understand the difference between these two. What you want is to be supremely wise. You want the world to know you as a great knower. Within yourself you already believe you are; only others have not recognized it yet. In time they will; people are ignorant, foolish—that’s why they don’t see your great wisdom. Otherwise, of course, you are supremely wise. There is an Arab saying: at the final moment of sending each creature into the world, God calls them close and makes one last joke, whispering in their ear, “I have never made anyone greater than you.” And each person carries this within all life long. If he tells anyone, people laugh—because God has played the same joke on them too.…
The sleeping person is like that. All day he seems perfectly fine, not a flicker of anger. Suddenly he slaps his son: “Why are you late?” You think, “He’s fine most of the time.” No—that slap shows that the rest of the time he only creates the appearance of being fine. He is not fine, he cannot be fine, because this could not emerge from a truly fine man. A man suddenly plunges a knife into someone’s chest; we say, “Till yesterday he was a good man—utterly good.” Granted he seemed utterly good; but it was an appearance. The sleeping person can only produce the appearance of goodness. Evil is his destiny; it will show itself. He can hold it back for a moment or two, teeter this way and that, but it will show. Do you realize that you are holding yourself together all the time?
This much is certain: Jesus was not in his own land. From birth he had to be taken away—his parents fled with him. Later Jesus lived in Egypt, in India, in Tibet. It is even possible he reached Japan, for there is a place in Japan where folk legend still tells that Jesus came there. He searched all the East. Certainly when Jesus came to India, Mahavira’s voice was still a fiery voice. Only five centuries earlier Mahavira had departed. Buddha’s voice was still alive. The fragrance still lingered in the air though the flower had gone. Surely the sutra Jesus held—what Christians call confession—must be linked somewhere to Mahavira’s very sutra. Only Christianity has given confession such value: go before the priest and reveal whatever sin you have committed. Say simply, “This mistake happened.” In the very acceptance—“A mistake happened through me”—liberation begins. In acceptance is freedom.
Beloved master, I notice that the questions I write to you usually turn out to be "confessions." I assumed it was because of some kind of conditioning, although my upbringing did not include the practice of confession to a priest. It seems that I have an expectation that by telling you, you can free me. Is this so? Or am I, in fact, abdicating responsibility by asking in this way? Perhaps it is not authentic asking?
I have heard, that a priest had a great friendship with a rabbi and they had decided one Sunday that, after the church work was over, they would go to play golf. The rabbi came and waited outside in his car. Finally, he entered the church and asked, "What is the matter? Why are you being delayed?" There was a long line of people who were waiting to confess -- that was the reason why the priest was delayed. So the rabbi entered from the back door into the booth and said to the priest, "This line will take the whole day!" The priest said, "Let us do one thing: let me get ready for the golf game; meanwhile you sit in my place." There is only a small window, a hole, so that the person does not feel too humiliated. He confesses from the other side. The hole is…